Impending Birthday
by Holliden
Summary: Takes place before second movie. Hiccup is turning eighteen and Astrid is unsure of what to get him. Explores Astrid and Hiccup's relationship over the seven days leading up to his birthday.
1. Introduction

**HAHA please forgive me I have no idea what I'm doing.**

The sun was setting once again on Berk. Being one of the only real benefits of living on the island the sunset was quite beautiful. Well actually, after a couple years and only a few burnt houses there was one other benefit to living on Berk, there were the pets. That's right, the dragons that had been raiding the village these hundreds of years had now become the pets of the vikings that use to kill these very same dragons. There was no one who benefited from this change more than Hiccup. No longer was Hiccup "the worst viking Berk has ever seen," now he was the "Pride of Berk" and "Dragon Conqueror." Not that Hiccup allowed anyone to say that last one when he was within earshot.

The sun was setting on the dragon and viking village. The villagers were settling in their homes as they finished the necessary chores that had to be done before nightfall. One of those necessary chores was taking Toothless on his daily flight. Not that Hiccup ever considered this a chore, but it was necessary considering when he was unable to the dragon tended to get back at him. Last time Hiccup was unable to he woke up to find himself hanging upside down from the rafters with a not to happy Toothless suspending him there.

Hiccup was in the middle of this flight when an all too familiar figure flew up beside him. "And to what do I owe this pleasant surprise to, oh great Lady Hofferson?" Hiccup snarked as Astrid and Stormfly became level with him and Toothless.

Astrid smirked. "Oh nothing, I was only wondering what you guys are going to think when me and Stormfly beat you two to Dragon Island." Astrid declared as she and Stormfly quickly sped past the boy and his dragon.

"Oh we'll see about that, come on Toothless." Hiccup said knowingly as he changed the tailfin position and Toothless sharply veered down and to the right out of sight of the blond girl and her Deadly Nadder.

Astrid was constantly on the lookout for the black blur that always over took her in these little competitions she initiated. Astrid knew that she could never really beat the Hiccup and Night Fury duo, but it was kind of worth seeing that smirk on his face just so she could give him a light punch to wipe it off. Okay, it was more than kind of worth it. Hiccup was the only person that Astrid really did not mind losing to, but she really was not okay with the fact that she still could not see the two of them ready to overtake her in the waning sunlight. If there was one thing Astrid hated more than losing it was winning on false pretenses. She grimaced. Damn it, Hiccup better not of ignored her, oh she was going to punch him so hard when she got back.

After flying for some time Astrid finally saw Dragon Island as the final rays of the sun fell beneath the waves. Astrid spotted the light of a small fire as she began to descend. "Oh that little-" She cut herself off as she directed Stormfly to land next to Toothless.

"How nice of you to finally join us." Hiccup proclaimed as he reclined against Toothless and tried to hide the fact he was out of breath from preparing the fire in the small time he had from when he landed and when Astrid landed.

"Are you sure that's not a new record?" Astrid asked. "I'm pretty sure I can at least see you when you pass me."

Hiccup smirked. "I stopped keeping track after the fifty-forth or fifty-sixth time I beat you. Ow!" Hiccup grabbed his arm after receiving what Astrid called a "light" punch wiping the grin from his face.

"Oh come on ya big baby." Astrid smiled as she sat down, not quite as close as she would have liked, but still within punching range of Hiccup and leaned back against the Night Fury's flank. "So, any plans for your birthday next week?" Astrid inquired as she gazed up at the stars that were just begging to twinkle into existence as the glow leftover from the sun dissipated completely over the horizon.

Hiccup removed his hand from his "wounded" arm following Astrid's gaze to look at the stars. "Well if my father and Gobber have anything to do with it I'm sure it will be just as bad as last year."

"You know I don't think they actually planned to have the Sharkworms attack when they did." Said Astrid, remembering last year when a group of Sharkworm dragons had ransacked the village and ruined the birthday feast that Stoick and Gobber had planned.

"That was the best part of the whole day." Astrid turned her head and gave Hiccup a displeased look. "What?" Hiccup gave her the same displeased look discerning what she was implying. "I didn't even want a party! I distinctly told them not to, but what do they do? Throw one anyway. Getting all the villagers in on it, Hoisting me on their shoulders, throwing gifts at me, a big feast in the Great Hall- I mean it's better than the way it was before, but I can't say I like all this extra attention." Hiccup huffed and looked away.

Astrid got an all too familiar sensation of guilt in her stomach at Hiccup's statement. Astrid knew that Hiccup didn't hold the things she had done back then against her, but she still couldn't help herself from feeling this way. Hiccup was too kind and naïve, the poor sucker. Astrid had decided she would hold it against herself in his place. The years of shame and constant disappointment Hiccup had to suffer through were not going to just disappear. Being a Viking was something that came naturally to Astrid, matters of the heart however did not. So Astrid was going to do all she could to make it up to him however she knew how. "Hiccup you deserve all this attention, you've done things vikings would have never imagined possible."

"Not you too!" Hiccup scoffed at her, throwing his arms up in exasperation.

"Don't pretend it isn't true Hiccup." She retorted, giving Hiccup her finest Astrid scowl that she could muster.

"Fine, fine, that still doesn't mean I have to like it." Hiccup gave in knowing that looking at her face the discussion was over and that Astrid wasn't changing her opinion anytime soon.

Astrid sighed and stood up. "Come on we should be getting back." She said grabbing Hiccup's arm to pull him up.

"Hey I'm wounded remember." Hiccup pretended to flinch as he allowed Astrid to pull her up.

"If you don't want a matching pair I think you better suck it up." she threatened as she walked up to the fire and began kicking dirt on it to put it out.

"I don't know having two bruised arms might look good on me." Hiccup replied as he mounted Toothless.

"It's an open offer. One I'm willing to complete at any time." She reminded him as she got on Stormfly, grinning and brandishing her fist.

"I think I'll pass on that offer." Hiccup and Toothless rose into the night sky almost invisible if Astrid hadn't seen them take off.

"Oh Hiccup, what I'm I going to do with you." Astrid said to herself as she and Stormfly started to join the boy and his dragon on the flight back to Berk. Astrid still didn't have any idea what she was going to get him for his birthday present.

**So that happened, I seriously have no idea what I'm doing. Will most likely continue this but I would like to see what people think and learn some more about the site before that since this is my first fic. **


	2. Day One

It was dawn, and that meant it was time to get to work. Berk began to come alive. All the townspeople were waking from their slumbers to meet the brisk morning and the labors of a viking's daily life.

Astrid had a full day ahead of her. Between training, helping out at the academy, helping plan the new stables, making sure the twins were not causing trouble, making sure Snotlout did not do anything stupid and finding out what to get Hiccup, Astrid had a lot to do. It's a wonder she had any time to breath much less have time to do any of those things. But, Astrid was a viking and any problems that came up she would solve, or throw her axe at, which would very likely solve the problem anyway. Except the biggest and most important problem was one she was unable to throw her axe at, such a shame.

The gift, what was Astrid going to get Hiccup for his birthday. There was only one week left to get it. What did you get the boy that had everything? Hiccup was the chief's son. Hiccup had dragons literally eating out of his hands. Hiccup could invent things that even she thought were insane until Hiccup proved they actually worked. Last year Astrid decided had decided to cook something for Hiccup, but the Sharkworms had made her realize that doing that again was a bad idea.

During the celebration feast of Hiccup's last birthday, the Sharkworms had swarmed the island. Sharkworms are like a combination between an alligator and a shark, and more vicious than both. They are incredibly fast in the water, on land, or in the sky. They crashed into the Great Hall and began devouring all the food that had been prepared. Hiccup tried to train them, but they were far too aggressive, and he almost ended up losing a hand. As vikings and dragons alike tried to fend off the intruders, Hiccup noticed that there was one food item that the Sharkworms avoided. It was a big pile of large oddly shaped pieces of what looked like coal. Surprisingly light, Hiccup threw one of the pieces into the snapping jaws of a Sharkworm, which then, after a moment of pure disgust, threw up. Armed with the strange black lumps the vikings were able to force the group of Sharkworms to retreat, then spent the rest of the day cleaning up dragon vomit and trying to salvage what they could of the food. No one had any idea of where the black lumps had come from, but Astrid knew for she had made them and they were supposed to be sandwiches made to look like Toothless. After seeing her birthday gift being thrown up several times, Astrid was severely disheartened and swore she would never cook again, or she would at least taste test what she made before serving it.

So yeah, cooking something for Hiccup's birthday was kind of out of the question for now.

Astrid would deal with deciding what to get Hiccup later. Right now she had to head over to the caverns to help prepare the plans for the new stables. As she left her house Astrid spotted Hiccup in the plaza, Toothless lounging not too far from him. Hiccup was bent over examining the base of the new feeding station that had been built the week before. Deciding to get a closer look Astrid began walking towards them. Toothless snorted with her approach warning his rider of the blonde visitor, causing Hiccup to straighten up and turn around. Annoying reptile, he just had to ruin the view, didn't he. Of course, the view from the front was not so bad either. The years had been kind to Hiccup and he was starting to shoot up. Hiccup was just a little taller than Astrid by a few inches and it annoyed her to no end. As soon as she noticed that she had to look up to meet his eyes, she gave him a punch to discourage any more growth on his part. Not that it stopped him. Hiccup's new height made him look gangly and like his body did not yet know what to do with all the extra length, but Hiccup was starting to fill out. All those hours spent riding Toothless and working in the forge was giving Hiccup some nice lean muscle. With his face going from boyish to masculine and bright intelligent green eyes, Hiccup was quite a looker, Astrid observed smugly. Oh shoot, Astrid was spacing out and Hiccup was talking. What was he saying?

"-ing that you're on your way to the caverns to help plan the new stables?" Hiccup asked not noticing that Astrid had not been paying attention.

"Yeah I'm on my way now. I was just wondering if you were going to actually go considering all you've done for the past week is fiddle with your new contraptions." Said Astrid, as she gestured towards the feeding station, relieved that Hiccup had obviously not noticed her space out.

"Hey these so called contraptions have to be strong enough for a dragon to use. It's surprising that it lasted this long." Hiccup pouted and reached down to scratch Toothless behind the earflaps.

Astrid smirked. "Alright, come on. We're going to be late, and considering that this was your idea you should really be there on time." Astrid began walking away.

"Fine we're coming." Hiccup followed Astrid and Toothless followed Hiccup as the trio headed off to the caverns.

As they entered the caverns, they saw a group of a few vikings that had been gathered specifically for this meeting. The vikings that were present were the ones largely in charge of construction on the island. Gobber and Stoic were there as well, offset from the other vikings and hunched together talking in low whispers, which was pretty impressive considering those two barely ever talked in anything quieter than a loud shout. The two large men broke apart as they saw who was coming.

"Well look who finally showed up," exclaimed Gobber "any later and you would've been late to yer own meeting." The other men chuckled at Gobber's comment and Astrid gave Hiccup an "I told you so" look.

Hiccup just shrugged his signature Hiccup shrug and started the meeting.

Astrid almost regretted tagging along, but she decided it was one of the little viking things she could do for Hiccup. Just being there to support him, and maybe bashing a stubborn viking's skull if the chief wasn't feeling up to it. Unfortunately, the meeting was uneventful. There were no skulls to bash, it was mostly just Hiccup going over his ideas and the supplies that the village would need to provide to have the stables built, and deciding what walls to knock down and what walls would be kept. This meeting was really just a formality to make sure everyone involved knew what they were going to do. The construction would not get started for some while.

The meeting ended and the other vikings filed out. Hiccup, Toothless, and Astrid were the last ones to leave. Astrid decided once again to attempt to find out what she could get Hiccup for his birthday.

"You never really answered my question from last night. What exactly are you planning to do on your birthday?" Astrid asked as they exited the caverns and entered the village.

"I'm thinking I'll just go flying with Toothless all day, it'll be nice to get away for a while, but as you could probably tell my father and Gobber seem to have other plans." Hiccup sighed and Toothless nudged him on his good leg just as hopeful as Hiccup was that they would get that all day flight.

Astrid tried not to look as annoyed as she felt. Hiccup deserved that all day flight. She was just upset that he had not included her in his birthday activities. I mean she was his girlfriend.

Okay, it wasn't official, all they had really done was a couple kisses, and these were always initiated by Astrid. I mean, it was obvious Hiccup liked her. Even before the kissing, Hiccup would stare at her longingly from afar and sometimes even trip when there was nothing to trip on when she walked by him. Even after the kissing, when those long looks from afar became furtive sideways glances when he thought Astrid would not notice. So it was not truly official, but she was still mad that Hiccup had not considered her at all when making plans for his birthday. Astrid punched him on the arm. She had considered giving him a hard punch, but held herself back as she noticed the bags under Hiccup's eyes.

"Hiccup, you've been pulling all-nighters again haven't you?" asked Astrid.

"Oof," Hiccup rubbed his arm for the second day in a row. "Yeah, I've been working on some designs for a fire prevention system. I've also been thinking of making a better and bigger map of the surrounding areas. Ever since the Screaming Death a couple of years ago our maps haven't been entirely accurate and it would be great to see what kind of new and exciting dragons could be out there." Said Hiccup a far off look in his eyes. Get the boy to think about new and exciting dragons to train and he was off in his own little world. "Why? Is it really that obvious that I've been up all night?" he asked.

"Hiccup, if those bags get any bigger Gobber is going to ask if he can keep his spare undies in them." Said Astrid jokingly, and just a smidge worried. "You should probably go and take a nap if you are that worried about the bags under your eyes." Astrid decided she was about to give Hiccup one of her mightiest Astrid glares to prevent any possibility of him ignoring her advice.

"True." Said Hiccup thoughtfully, as he leaped on Toothless' saddle and clicked his prosthetic into place. "But I think I'll take one after patrol." Hiccup and Toothless sprang into the air and began to fly off.

Even though Astrid knew Hiccup was not looking at her she gave him her finest glare anyway. "That's right, you better!" She shouted after them, waving her fist as the boys began to shrink away into the sky, ignoring her advice and avoiding her glare. Astrid considered going after the two of them, but she had enough to do today and not all her time could be taken up by Hiccup. No matter how much she wished it could. "Stormfly!" She called out. A short minute later her Deadly Nadder was by her side and lowered its head for scratches. Astrid granted Stormfly's request and scratched the blue dragon's big head liberally. After satisfying the dragon's desire for scratches, Astrid jumped on Stormfly's back and urged the dragon into the sky and towards the academy.

There were no lessons today. The academy normally taught every other day or so taking breaks for holidays and the frequent snowstorms common to Berk. Today Astrid was just doing some cleaning. There was not a whole lot of cleaning to. Just had to remove the occasionally scorch mark and clean up a mess left by someone's nervous dragon. Astrid was done fairly quickly, and moved on with her day.

Luckily, while Astrid flew back into town, she spotted the twins, Tuffnut and Ruffnut, in the middle of the game, "let's have a staring contest while bashing our heads together," that the twins had invented when normal staring contests had gotten a little too boring for them. This could keep them occupied for several hours or a couple days so that was one thing she could check off her list of things to do.

Snoutlout was supposed to be on patrol. Of course, whether he actually was on patrol or not was the question. Astrid would deal with Snoutlout later, if she found it necessary, and went to her house to grab her axe.

Astrid left Stormfly at her house and headed towards the woods to train. Astrid liked to train. She was one of the best vikings on Berk and was not willing to let others get ahead of her. There were not that many vikings training these days. What with there being no dragons to fight and that they were using these dragons to do most of the heavy lifting, some of the vikings had gone a little soft. Astrid was not going to be one of these vikings. Not that she blamed them, having dragons tended to fix most of the problems that required working out. But training was one of the only things that let Astrid entirely forget her problems for a moment. She let out a heavy sigh as she entered the woods.

Astrid was clueless on what to get Hiccup. It was so frustrating! There was nothing she could make that Hiccup couldn't make ten times better than she could. There were no skulls that she could bash together for him. She hated it! This uselessness, this utter lack of action on her part, she was just standing on the sidelines "supporting" him. "AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhh!" With a mighty swing she hefted her axe at the nearest tree taking a large chuck out of it. She was deep enough into the woods so that no one could hear her or disturb her onece she got started. Astrid wrenched her axe out of the tree and calmed herself. Closing her eyes, she took in a deep breath. She exhaled. She took another deep breath. She exhaled.

Outcasts! Astrid jolted forward her pursuers close behind. She ducked under branches and swerved around trees. On the right. She swung her axe at the outcast with a loud thud. Not losing her momentum Astrid kept running. More outcasts. Thud, thud. Behind her. Another thud. In front. Astrid threw her axe and it landed in the face of the outcast. She grabbed it as she passed and with a quick jerk took it out. Still being pursued, she leaped off a rock. Big outcast right in front of her. There was no time to change the direction of her jump, so she spun. With a yell and a loud shing, she cleaved right through the man.

A tumble and a roll later, Astrid came to a crouch. Sweating and slightly winded, she surveyed the damage she had done. The tree she had cut through was on the ground cut cleanly by her axe. The other trees she had hit had large gashes on them. Pleased by what she had done, Astrid put her axe over her shoulder and began to walk back to the village to get some food and some sleep.

**And a month later here's the next chapter****.**** I would like to say I'm going to regularly update but I know for a fact that won't happen and they will come out as soon as I'm done writing them. Thank you all for the follows and favorites and don't forget to leave a review.**


End file.
